Though I can't fully explain the secret of what makes time travel possible, I can tell you it didn't fall into my lap. It fell into my Mother's, in the form of generously proportioned President of the United States of America William Howard Taft. Strange happenings and freak occurrences often surrounded Taft and many believed him to possess magical powers. On April 14th, 1910, he was given the historic honor of throwing out the opening day first pitch at National Park in Washington DC, home of the Senators. My Mother was one of four pregnant "sporting women" hired to make Taft appear fitter for the news men.

The President's toss was mighty, caught by the capable hands of 200 pound Walter "Big Train" Johnson, who went on to pitch the greatest game of his career. The ace held the Philadelphia Athletics to one hit, a fly ball that right fielder Harry Gessler dropped when he mistakenly backed over one of the many small boys in the outfield. It was in the middle of the seventh inning that the rotund commander in chief became uncomfortable in his average sized chair and stood up. The crowd followed suit, believing the President was about to leave. That’s when my Mother went into labor and collapsed.

This account of what happened next is from sportswriter Ronnie Hutchins' Washington Gazette column: "The sport woman had fallen and produced unpleasant noises and clutched at her bursting region. Will Taft leaped to action and delivered the child, requiring no assistance from other ball fans, mouths agape. He asked only for a man's shirt to wrap the shrieking newborn and a man's trousers to clean the afterbirth from the Presidential viewing box." Taft handed me to my Mother, stretched him arms and legs and seated himself. The crowd did the same and the game resumed. The seventh inning stretch was born. And so was I.

Though I’m sure the peculiar circumstances of my birth are in part responsible for the things I’m able to do, it wasn’t until my 18th birthday that I discovered time travel. However, April 14th, 1928 found its way into the record books for a much more obscure event. After 36 hours in the air, Irishman James Fitzmaurice and his two German counterparts landed their Bremen aircraft on Greenly Island in Canada, completing the first ever east-to-west transatlantic flight. The irony is not that the true significance of this date is known only to me but that 199 years later, I was a passenger on the first train to cross the newly opened Transatlantic Railway. The 54 minute underwater ride from New York to London commemorated the bicentennial of Charles Lindbergh’s flight and was attended by the President of the North American Union, among other important dignitaries and Hollywood celebrities of the time. I reserved my ticket in 2010 from a man whose small company would go on to be the massive corporation that supplied the primary financing and guided the unprecedented logistics of the transatlantic project, more than a century away. Needless to say he was confused by the proposal. After convincing him I was nothing more sinister than a wealthy lunatic, an agreement was signed. I would invest a respectable sum to get his company off the ground and if one day it built the fabled Transatlantic Railway, I’d be on the first train. On May 21st, 2127, I took my ticket out of the hands of his great-great grandson, who wanted to meet me for himself.

Back to April 14th, 1928. My 18th birthday. I was drowning in the boredom of the final lesson of the day, elocution, often taught last due to the physical demands of speech executed with proper manner and stance. I began to imagine myself tearing out of the schoolhouse, shoving the younger ones from my path to freedom, as I planned to do in less than 5 minutes time. Whether I was overeager to celebrate this milestone in my life or I just couldn’t stomach another second of my wretched schoolmarm, the Heeley widow from DinwiddieCounty, is unclear. In what I can only describe as a hazy moment, the bell that was supposed to ring in 2 minutes was suddenly singing its sweet song. I was already out the door with no idea how I got there. I chocked it up some sort of birthday miracle.

But I couldn’t get it off my mind during the 6 mile walk home, to a Virginia farm where a well-tempered, salt-of-the-earth couple had taken me in after failing to have a child of their own. The man was strong and strict but the woman was tired and walked with a kind of bowlegged limp, most likely from the years of vigorous attempts to conceive. As I began my chores I strained to see through the hazy moment in my memory. By the time I finished digging the new sewage trench and splitting the chord of wood that was my charge for the evening, things were getting clearer. I remembered leaping from my desk the moment the bell rang and the Heeley widow scolding me as I pushed my way to the exit. Satisfied and physically exhausted, I put the matter and myself to bed. As I drifted asleep to the sound of neighborhood wolves scratching at the chicken coop, I was blissfully unaware that I had traveled through time.

More to come...